Systems and methods for identifying a meaning of an ambiguous term in a natural language query

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems for identifying a meaning of an ambiguous term in a natural language query. The media guidance application isolates first and second terms from a query received from a user and identifies, in a knowledge graph, first and second pluralities of candidate components associated with the first and second terms. The first and second terms each having multiple candidate components indicates the first and second terms have ambiguous meanings. The media guidance application matches each candidate component of the first and second pluralities of candidate components to form a plurality of pairs and determines strength of association for each pair in the plurality of pairs. The media guidance application filters the plurality of pairs by strength of association for each pair and determines a plurality of possible meanings based on the filtered plurality of pairs. The media guidance application selects a meaning from the plurality of possible meanings.

BACKGROUND

The increased use of natural language processing in systems that peopleuse daily has greatly raised the average person's expectations regardinghow the computer formulates an answer to a query formatted for naturalconversation. Many terms in such queries are only given meaning based oncontext and other terms in the query. In order for systems to handle theincreasingly complex natural language queries, it is necessary toidentify the meaning of the ambiguous terms in a way that allows thesystem to efficiently provide a relevant answer in real time.

SUMMARY

Methods and systems are herein provided for identifying a meaning of anambiguous term in a natural language query. Often, terms that are ontheir own ambiguous have a clearer meaning when other terms from thequery are taken into account. For example, on its own “Patriot” mayrender itself to a number of interpretations, but in the context of thequery “When is the Patriot Game on TNT?,” it becomes clear that the useris referring to the movie “Patriot Games.”

In some aspects, the methods and systems are provided herein for a mediaguidance application for identifying a meaning of an ambiguous term in anatural language query. The media guidance application isolates a firstterm and a second term from a query received from a user. For example,the media guidance application may parse the query “When is the PatriotGame on TNT?” and isolate the terms “Patriot” and “Game” from the query.In some embodiments, the media guidance application identifies apredicted syntax based on the command term or question word to identifythe likely use of each word. For example, the command term or questionword in “When is the Patriot Game on TNT?” may be “When is.”

The media guidance application identifies, in a knowledge graph, a firstplurality of candidate components associated with the first term. Thefirst term having more than one candidate component indicates the firstterm has an ambiguous meaning. For example, the media guidanceapplication may search the knowledge graph for components of theknowledge graph for terms similar to the first term. In someembodiments, the media guidance application identifies candidatecomponents by identifying components that include the first term such asidentifying the components “The Patriot,” “Patriots,” “Patriot Games,”and “Patriot: The Game” from the term “Patriot.”

The media guidance application identifies, in the knowledge graph, asecond plurality of identified candidate components associated with thesecond term. The second term having more than one candidate componentindicates the second term has an ambiguous meaning. For example, themedia guidance application may search the knowledge graph for componentsof the knowledge graph for terms similar to the second term. In someembodiments, the media guidance application identifies candidatecomponents based on associated metadata such as identifying thecomponents “Video Games,” “Sports,” “Patriot Games,” and “Patriot: TheGame” from the term “Game” by finding the term included in the metadatadescription for each component.

The media guidance application matches each candidate component of thefirst plurality of candidate components to each candidate component ofthe second plurality of candidate components to form a plurality ofpairs. For example, the media guidance application may determine a listof pairs of candidate components such as “The Patriot” and “VideoGames,” “The Patriot” and “Patriot: The Game,” “Patriot Games” and“Sports,” and more. In some embodiments, the media guidance applicationdetermines all possible pairs based on the identified candidatecomponents. In some embodiments, a candidate component is paired withitself if associated with both the first and second term. For example,“Patriot Games” was identified for both terms and so a pair may be thesingle candidate component “Patriot Games.”

The media guidance application determines a strength of association foreach pair in the plurality of pairs. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that “The Patriot” and “Video Games” have astrong association, and “Patriot Games” and “Sports” have a weakassociation. In some embodiments, the strength of association is a valuerepresentative of a distance determined by values associated with theedges between nodes. While both “The Patriot” and “Video Games” and“Patriot Games” and “Sports” are only a node apart, if the edges betweeneach node add up to a smaller sum, the total distance is smaller. Insome embodiments, the strength of association is a category that isdetermined by a threshold distance such as a “Strong” association if thenodes are below the threshold and a “Weak” association if the nodes areabove the threshold.

The media guidance application filters the plurality of pairs by thestrength of association for each pair. In some embodiments, the mediaguidance application filters the plurality of pairs by identifying afirst pair of the plurality of pairs, determining whether the first pairhas a strength of association that is below a required threshold,excluding the first pair from the filtered plurality of pairs inresponse to determining that the strength of association is below therequired threshold, and including the first pair in the filteredplurality of pairs in response to determining that the strength ofassociation is not below the required threshold. For example, the mediaguidance application may remove the pair of “Patriot Games” and “Sports”based on the weak association between the candidate components, whichindicates that the distance between the candidate components is notwithin the threshold distance.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines therequired threshold based on the strength of association for each of theplurality of pairs, adjust the required threshold based on the filteredplurality of pairs, and filter the plurality of pairs based on theadjusted required threshold. For example, the media guidance applicationmay set a first threshold based on an average distance between candidatecomponents, and after filtering the plurality of pairs, determine thatthe threshold needs to be lower to further narrow down the options, andadjust the threshold accordingly.

The media guidance application determines a plurality of possiblemeanings associated with the query based on the filtered plurality ofpairs. In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines apossible meaning by identifying a relevant media asset based on the pairof candidate components. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that both of the pairs “The Patriot” and “Video Games,” and“The Patriot” and “The Patriot: The Game” are referring to the mediaasset “The Patriot: The Game,” as a video game associated with themovie, “The Patriot.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application isolates a commandterm from the query received from the user and determines the pluralityof possible meanings associated with the query based on the filteredplurality of pairs and the command term. For example, the media guidanceapplication may isolate the term “When is” as a command term anddetermine that all possible meanings must have an associated action ofdisplaying program information relating to time. In some embodiments,the media guidance application determines the plurality of possiblemeanings by determining a plurality of possible meanings associated withthe command term, where each of the possible meanings is associated withexpected terms, comparing the expected terms associated with eachpossible meaning associated with the command term to the filteredplurality of pairs, filtering out a subset of the plurality of pairsbased on the comparison, and determining the plurality of possiblemeanings associated with the query based on the subset of the pluralityof pairs and the expected terms. For example, the media guidanceapplication may expect any query containing the command term “When is”to also identify a broadcast media asset if the query also contains theword “on,” and search the media assets determined to be related to theplurality of pairs so that only the broadcast media assets are used inthe plurality of possible meanings.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application isolates a thirdterm from the query received from the user and determines the pluralityof possible meanings associated with the query based on the filteredplurality of pairs and the third term. For example, the media guidanceapplication may isolate the term “TNT” from the query and limit thepossible meanings to relate to media assets associated with thetelevision channel TNT. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication determines the plurality of possible meanings byidentifying, in the knowledge graph, a third candidate componentassociated with the third term, identifying expected terms associatedwith the third candidate component, comparing the expected termsassociated with the third candidate component to each pair in thefiltered plurality of pairs, filtering out a subset of the plurality ofpairs based on the comparison, and determining the plurality of possiblemeanings associated with the query based on the subset of the pluralityof pairs and the expected terms. For example, the media guidanceapplication may isolate the term “TNT” from the query, determine thatthere is an expectation that a term from the query is a broadcast mediaasset associated with the television channel TNT and limit the pluralityof pairs to only those with candidate components with metadataidentifying that it is broadcast on TNT.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application receives feedback onthe accuracy for the plurality of possible meanings associated with thequery and adjusts the required threshold based on the received feedback.For example, the media guidance application may receive feedback fromthe user that none of the results are relevant to the user's query, andthe media guidance application may raise the threshold so that feweritems are likely to be filtered out.

The media guidance application selects a meaning from the plurality ofpossible meanings associated with the query. For example, the mediaguidance application may identify the media assets “Patriot Games,”which is playing on TNT at 8 pm, “Patriots vs. Jets,” which is playingon FOX at 10 pm, and “The Patriot: The Game,” which is in the GameStore, from the listed pairs, and determine to display programinformation about the movie “Patriot Games” playing on TNT at 8 pmbecause it is the only one of the media assets playing on TNT.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application selects the meaningfor the query by ranking the plurality of possible meanings according toa user preference and automatically determining the meaning for thequery based on the ranking. For example, if the user preferences showthat the user loves Actions Movies, and hates Sports and Video Games,the media guidance application may rank “Patriot Games” higher than“Patriots vs. Jets” and “The Patriot: The Game,” and select “PatriotGames” as the meaning. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication selects the meaning for the query by generating for displaythe plurality of possible meanings associated with query, and receivinga user selection of the meaning for the query. For example, the mediaguidance application may provide the user with the options of “PatriotGames,” “Patriots vs. Jets,” and “The Patriot: The Game” and allow theuser to select one of the three options.

Conventional systems do not consider multiple interpretations of aquery. Moreover, they do not do so by considering multiple entitiesacross the query. This means that if the system identifies the word“Patriot” in a query, it is equally likely that the system willunderstand the user to have referred to “Patriot Games” the movie, “ThePatriot” the movie, or the upcoming Patriots' game against the Jets.Often, systems address this using additional information such asdetermining which of the three possible media assets is most popular orfits within the user's preference profile. The methods and systemsprovided herein discuss identifying the possible meanings of the queryusing the information provided by the query itself. By considering theadditional words such as “Game,” the system can start refining thepossible meanings of the query to refer to either “Patriot Games” or theupcoming Patriots' game against the Jets. By considering that the queryalso mentioned the television channel TNT or the fact that a questionwas asked about time, the system can further narrow down the possiblemeaning to the movie “Patriot Games.” The methods and systems providedherein use the knowledge graph to allow the system to understand how theitems of the query are related to one another and ensure that the systemprovides more relevant results in response to natural language queries.

It should be noted that the systems, methods, apparatuses, and/oraspects described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems, methods, apparatuses, and/or aspects.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of a display of user equipmentdisplaying the results of a natural language query, including anambiguous term, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of a display of user equipmentdisplaying the result of a natural language query, including anambiguous term, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of a display of user equipmentdisplaying the results of a natural language query, including ambiguousterms, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of a display of user equipmentdisplaying the result of a natural language query, including ambiguousterms, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative example of a display screen generated by amedia guidance application, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 6 shows another illustrative example of a display screen generatedby a media guidance application, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 shows an illustrative embodiment of a portion of a knowledgegraph, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in identifying ameaning of an ambiguous term, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure; and

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for identifying a meaningof an ambiguous term, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Methods and systems for identifying a meaning of an ambiguous term in anatural language query are described herein. The media guidanceapplication isolates first and second terms from a query received from auser and identifies, in a knowledge graph, first and second pluralitiesof candidate components associated with the first and second terms. Thefirst and second terms each having multiple candidate componentsindicates that the first and second terms have ambiguous meanings. Themedia guidance application matches each candidate component of the firstand second pluralities of candidate components to form a plurality ofpairs and determines strength of association for each pair in theplurality of pairs. The media guidance application filters the pluralityof pairs by strength of association for each pair and determines aplurality of possible meanings based on the filtered plurality of pairs.The media guidance application selects a meaning from the plurality ofpossible meanings.

The natural language query may be in the form of textual, verbal, or anyother suitable mode of communication. The natural language queryincludes one or more natural language terms. One or more of the naturallanguage terms may have more than one meaning, rendering the termsambiguous. The natural language terms may be present in a knowledgegraph that is a collection of data organized to store relationshipsbetween different pieces of information. A strength of associationbetween terms may be associated with the distance between two nodes inthe knowledge graph. Distance between nodes may be calculated bycounting the number of neighboring nodes between two nodes. Distancebetween nodes may also be calculated using a distance value associatedwith each edge that connects two nodes and summing each distance valuealong the path between two non-neighboring nodes. Command terms may be asingle word with an associated meaning such as “play” or “show.” Commandterms may be phrases or words associated with a sentence structure suchas “how” or “when.” The third term may be another term that providesadditional information through metadata associated with candidatecomponents of the knowledge graph.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of a display 100 of user equipmentdisplaying the results of a natural language query including anambiguous term. The user equipment may be a television set-top box, amobile phone, a tablet computer, a wearable device, or another suitableuser equipment. On receiving query 102, “Play Cats,” through microphone106, the user equipment may display results 104. Results 104 may includeprogram information and/or descriptions of the media asset based onrelevant metadata in order to help the user identify the relevantresult. Results may also include images, sounds, or other non-textualinformation to further help identify the relevant media asset. Forexample, results 104 includes “Cats The Musical (Movie),” “Cats (MovieSoundtrack),” “Cats (Broadway Musical Soundtrack),” and “Crazy Cats Game(Game).” Selecting option 108 includes only the top result instead ofincluding all entries from results 104.

Selecting an entry from results 104 may initiate an associated action.There may be a default associated action if a command term is notidentified. An associated action may include displaying more informationabout a media asset, starting the playback of a media asset, opening upa relevant webpage, changing a setting, updating a user profile, oranother suitable action. For example, for query 102, “Play” indicates acommand term to play the media asset for the query.

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of a display 200 of user equipmentdisplaying the result of a natural language query including an ambiguousterm. On receiving query 202, “Play Cats,” via microphone 208, the userequipment may display results 204. The results are limited to one entrysince option 208 for the top result only is selected. The user mayselect option 206 to see other entries from results 204. The top resultfrom results 204 may be chosen based on ranking the results using rulesbased on preset rules or user preferences. The user preferences may beautomatically recorded or manually set by user. The preset rules mayinclude a set of business rules, such as prioritizing advertised contentover non-advertised content. In this example, the user preferencesindicate the user likes musical soundtracks. As such, the top result isselected to be “Cats (The Musical Soundtrack).”

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of a display 300 of user equipmentdisplaying the results of a natural language query including ambiguousterms. On receiving query 302, “When is the Patriot Game on TNT?,” viamicrophone 306, the user equipment displays results 304. The user mayselect option 308 to see only the top result. The user equipment mayparse the query “When is the Patriot Game on TNT?” and isolate the terms“Patriot” and “Game” from the query. The user equipment may identify apredicted syntax based on the command term or question word to identifythe likely use of each word. For example, the command term or questionword in “When is the Patriot Game on TNT?” may be “When is.” The userequipment may identify candidate components by identifying componentsthat include the first term such as identifying the components “ThePatriot,” “Patriots,” “Patriot Games,” and “Patriot: The Game” from theterm “Patriot.” The user equipment may search the knowledge graph forcomponents of the knowledge graph for terms similar to the second term.The user equipment may identify candidate components based on associatedmetadata such as identifying the components “Video Games,” “Sports,”“Patriot Games,” and “Patriot: The Game” from the term “Game” by findingthe term included in the metadata description for each component. Theuser equipment may determine a list of pairs of candidate componentssuch as “The Patriot” and “Video Games,” “The Patriot” and “Patriot: TheGame,” “Patriot Games” and “Sports,” and more. The user equipment maydetermine a strength of association for each pair in the plurality ofpairs. The user equipment may determine that “The Patriot” and “VideoGames” have a strong association, and “Patriot Games” and “Sports” havea weak association based on the distance between each pair. The userequipment may generate for display the plurality of possible meaningsassociated with query 302. Accordingly, the user equipment may provideresults 304 including “Patriot Games,” “Patriots vs. Jets,” “ThePatriot: The Game,” and “The Patriot (Movie).”

FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of a display 400 of user equipmentdisplaying the result of a natural language query, including ambiguousterms. On receiving query 402, “When is the Patriot Game on TNT?” viamicrophone 410, the user equipment displays result 404. The user mayselect option 412 to see only the top result. The user may select option408 to set a recording for result 404. The user may select option 406 tosee other search results hidden due to the user's selection of option412.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded oncomputer-readable media. Computer-readable media includes any mediacapable of storing data. The computer-readable media may be transitory,including, but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagneticsignals, or may be non-transitory, including, but not limited to,volatile and non-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as ahard disk, floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, registermemory, processor caches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front-facing screenand a rear-facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have afront-facing camera and/or a rear-facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a website), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 5-6 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 5-6 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 5-6 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative grid of a program listings display 500arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 500 may include grid 502 with(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 504, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 506, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 502 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 508, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 510. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 510 may be provided inprogram information region 512. Region 512 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and not provided according to a schedule). Non-linearprogramming may include content from different content sources,including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al., and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 502 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 514, recorded content listing 516, andInternet content listing 518. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 500 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings514, 516, and 518 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 502 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 502. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 520. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 520.)

Display 500 may also include video region 522 and options region 526.Video region 522 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 522 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 502. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 526 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 526 may be part of display 500 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 526 may concern features related to program listings in grid 502or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting a program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.)and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 8. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 6. Video mosaic display 600 includes selectable options 602 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 600, television listings option 604 isselected, thus providing listings 606, 608, 610, and 612 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 600 the listings may provide graphicalimages, including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 608 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 614 and text portion 616.Media portion 614 and/or text portion 616 may be selectable to viewcontent in full screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 614 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 600 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 606 islarger than listings 608, 610, and 612), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 7 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 700. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 8.User equipment device 700 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 702. I/O path 702 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 704, which includesprocessing circuitry 706 and storage 708. Control circuitry 704 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 702. I/O path 702 may connect control circuitry 704 (andspecifically processing circuitry 706) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 7 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 704 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 706. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 708). Specifically, control circuitry 704 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 704 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 704 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server-based embodiments, control circuitry 704 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which are described in more detail in connection with FIG. 8). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 708 thatis part of control circuitry 704. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 708 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 8, may be used to supplementstorage 708 or instead of storage 708.

Control circuitry 704 may include video-generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 704 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 700. Circuitry 704 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including, for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 708 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 700, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 708.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 704 using user inputinterface 710. User input interface 710 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 712 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 700. For example, display 712 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 710may be integrated with or combined with display 712. Display 712 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 712 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 712 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 712.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry704. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 704.Speakers 714 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 700 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 712 may be played throughspeakers 714. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers714.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone application whollyimplemented on user equipment device 700. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage708), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 704 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 708 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 704 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 710. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 710 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is aclient-server-based application. Data for use by a thick or thin clientimplemented on user equipment device 700 is retrieved on-demand byissuing requests to a server remote to the user equipment device 700. Inone example of a client-server-based guidance application, controlcircuitry 704 runs a web browser that interprets web pages provided by aremote server. For example, the remote server may store the instructionsfor the application in a storage device. The remote server may processthe stored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 704)and generate the displays discussed above and below. The client devicemay receive the displays generated by the remote server and may displaythe content of the displays locally on equipment device 700. This way,the processing of the instructions is performed remotely by the serverwhile the resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device700. Equipment device 700 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 710 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 700 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 710.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 700 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 704). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 704 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 704. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 704. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 700 of FIG. 7 can be implemented in system 800 ofFIG. 8 as user television equipment 802, user computer equipment 804,wireless user communications device 806, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 7 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 802, user computer equipment 804, or awireless user communications device 806. For example, user televisionequipment 802 may, like some user computer equipment 804, beInternet-enabled, allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 804 may, like some television equipment 802, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 804, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 806.

In system 800, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 8 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 802, user computer equipment 804, wireless user communicationsdevice 806) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on his orher personal computer at his or her office, the same channel wouldappear as a favorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., usertelevision equipment and user computer equipment) as well as the user'smobile devices, if desired. Therefore, changes made on one userequipment device can change the guidance experience on another userequipment device, regardless of whether they are the same or a differenttype of user equipment device. In addition, the changes made may bebased on settings input by a user, as well as user activity monitored bythe guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 814.Namely, user television equipment 802, user computer equipment 804, andwireless user communications device 806 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 814 via communications paths 808, 810, and 812, respectively.Communications network 814 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 808, 810, and 812 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 812 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that, in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 8, it is awireless path and paths 808 and 810 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 8 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 808, 810, and 812, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 814.

System 800 includes content source 816 and media guidance data source818 coupled to communications network 814 via communication paths 820and 822, respectively. Paths 820 and 822 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 808, 810,and 812. Communications with the content source 816 and media guidancedata source 818 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 8 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 816 and media guidance data source 818, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 8 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 816 and media guidance data source 818 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 816 and 818 withuser equipment devices 802, 804, and 806 are shown as throughcommunications network 814, in some embodiments, sources 816 and 818 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 802, 804, and 806 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 808, 810, and 812.

Content source 816 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 816 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 816 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 816 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 818 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 818may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 818 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 818 mayprovide user equipment devices 802, 804, and 806 with the media guidanceapplication itself or with software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihoodthat a given user will terminate access to a service/source. Forexample, the media guidance application may process the viewer data withthe subscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 708, and executedby control circuitry 704 of a user equipment device 700. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 704 of user equipment device 700and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 818) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 818), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 818 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices802, 804, and 806 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally, or alternatively, providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 800 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 8.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 814.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 816 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 802 and user computer equipment 804may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 806 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in acloud-computing environment to access cloud services. In acloud-computing environment, various types of computing services forcontent sharing, storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites orsocial networking sites) are provided by a collection ofnetwork-accessible computing and storage resources, referred to as “thecloud.” For example, the cloud can include a collection ofserver-computing devices, which may be located centrally or atdistributed locations, that provide cloud-based services to varioustypes of users and devices connected via a network such as the Internetvia communications network 814. These cloud resources may include one ormore content sources 816 and one or more media guidance data sources818. In addition, or in the alternative, the remote computing sites mayinclude other user equipment devices, such as user television equipment802, user computer equipment 804, and wireless user communicationsdevice 806. For example, the other user equipment devices may provideaccess to a stored copy of a video or a streamed video. In suchembodiments, user equipment devices may operate in a peer-to-peer mannerwithout communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 804 or wireless usercommunications device 806 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 804. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 814. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 7.

As referred to herein, the term “in response to” refers to “initiated asa result of” For example, a first action being performed in response toa second action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred to herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to “caused by.” For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 9 shows an illustrative embodiment of a portion of a knowledgegraph, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Knowledgegraph 900 may include a possibly large number of entities that arerepresented as nodes in the graph. For example, knowledge graph 900 maycontain, among others, nodes 902-920. The nodes of knowledge graph 900may be connected by edges, and the presence of an edge in the graph mayrepresent that there is an association between the entities representedby the nodes in the graph. Knowledge graph 900 may be stored usingstorage circuitry 708. Knowledge graph 900 may be stored locally on userequipment device 700 or stored remotely and accessed throughcommunications network 814. Knowledge graph 900 may be stored entirelyin one location, or be split into sections and each section stored atone of a plurality of locations. User equipment device 700 may locallycache frequently used portions of the knowledge graph for quickretrieval.

Knowledge graph 900 is composed of nodes and edges. In some embodiments,knowledge graph 900 may be represented as pointer tables in storagecircuitry 708. In some embodiments, data structures such as trees,bi-directional graphs, buckets, or arrays may be used to representknowledge graph 900 in storage circuitry 708.

Although knowledge graph 900 is discussed in relation to FIG. 9 as beingcomposed of nodes and edges, knowledge graph 900 may be any collectionof data that represents objects and relationships between objects.Knowledge graph 900 may include databases, lists, and collections whichrepresent objects and their associated relationships. Knowledge graph900 may not necessarily use nodes and edges to represent objects andtheir relationships. Knowledge graph 900, as shown in FIG. 9, is merelyan illustrative embodiment that may be used to represent objects andtheir relationships, and other representations may be used withoutdeparting from the scope of this invention. Knowledge graphs and theirfeatures are described in greater detail in U.S. patent application Ser.No. 14/501,504, filed Sep. 30, 2014, U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/500,309, filed Sep. 29, 2014, and U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/448,308, filed Jul. 31, 2014, which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entireties.

Each node in knowledge graph 900 may be associated with a candidatecomponent or a term. For example, node 908 is associated with the term“Game” while node 920 is associated with the candidate component of themovie “Patriot Games.” Each node may be associated with metadata. Forexample, node 912 and node 914 may be associated with metadatadescribing that both nodes relate to “The Patriot.” Node 912 may referto a video game based on the movie for node 914. An edge may be createdbetween node 912 and node 914 to represent this similarity in metadata.

In some embodiments, edges may connect nodes of different categories.For example, node 918 relating to channel TNT may be connected to node906 for Sports programming. In some embodiments, nodes may be connectedto a plurality of other nodes. For example, node 910 for video games maybe connected to node 908 for Game and node 912 for a video game based ona movie.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify aplurality of candidate components associated with a term by searchingthe knowledge graph 900 to identify a node corresponding to the term,and then identifying candidate components connected to the nodecorresponding to the term. For example, the media guidance applicationmay identify that node 908 corresponds to the term “Game.” The mediaguidance application may then determine that node 906 associated with“Sports” is a candidate component associated with the term. The mediaguidance application may further determine that node 904 is anothercandidate component associated with the term as node 904 associated with“Football” is connected to node 908 through node 906.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify aplurality of candidate components associated with a term by comparingthe term to the metadata associated with nodes in knowledge graph 900.For example, the media guidance application may compare the term“Patriot” with the metadata associated with nodes 914 and 920 todetermine that both nodes 914 and 920 correspond to movies that arecandidate components associated to the term “Patriot.”

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in identifying ameaning of an ambiguous term, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. FIG. 10 presents a process for control circuitry (e.g.,control circuitry 704) to identify a meaning of an ambiguous term inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. In some embodiments,this algorithm may be encoded on to non-transitory storage medium (e.g.,storage device 708) as a set of instructions to be decoded and executedby processing circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry 706). Processingcircuitry may, in turn, provide instructions to other sub-circuitscontained within control circuitry 704, such as the tuning, videogenerating, encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaling,analog/digital conversion circuitry, and the like.

At step 1002, control circuitry 704 isolates a first term and a secondterm from a query received from a user. For example, control circuitry704 may parse the query “When is Patriot Game on TNT” and isolate theterms “Patriot” and “Game” from the query. In some embodiments, controlcircuitry 704 identifies a predicted syntax based on the command term orquestion word to identify the likely use of each word. For example, thecommand term or question word in “When is Patriot Game on TNT” may be“When is.” Process 1000 proceeds to step 1004.

At step 1004, control circuitry 704 identifies, in a knowledge graph900, a first plurality of candidate components associated with the firstterm. The first term having more than one candidate component indicatesthe first term has an ambiguous meaning. For example, control circuitry704 may search the knowledge graph 900 for components of the knowledgegraph 900 for terms similar to the first term. In some embodiments,control circuitry 704 identifies candidate components by identifyingcomponent that include the first term such as identifying the components“The Patriot,” “Patriots,” “Patriot Games,” and “Patriot: The Game”associated with nodes 914, 902, 920, and 912 respectively from the term“Patriot.” Process 1000 proceeds to step 1006.

At step 1006, control circuitry 704 identifies, in the knowledge graph900, a second plurality of identified candidate components associatedwith the second term. The second term having more than one candidatecomponent indicates the second term has an ambiguous meaning. Forexample, control circuitry 704 may search the knowledge graph 900 forcomponents of the knowledge graph 900 for terms similar to the secondterm. In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 identifies candidatecomponents based on associated metadata such as identifying thecomponents “Video Games,” “Sports,” “Patriot Games,” and “Patriot: TheGame” associated with nodes 910, 906, 920, and 912, respectively, fromthe term “Game” by finding the term included in the metadata descriptionfor each component. Process proceeds to step 1008.

At step 1008, control circuitry 704 matches each candidate component ofthe first plurality of candidate components to each candidate componentof the second plurality of candidate components to form a plurality ofpairs. For example, control circuitry 704 may determine a list of pairsof candidate components such as “The Patriot” and “Video Games,” “ThePatriot” and “Patriot: The Game,” “Patriot Games” and “Sports,” andmore. In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 determines all possiblepairs based on the identified candidate components. In some embodiments,a candidate component is paired with itself if associated with both thefirst and second term. For example, “Patriot Games” was identified forboth terms and so a pair may be the single candidate component “PatriotGames” in node 920. Process proceeds to step 1010.

At step 1010, control circuitry 704 determines a strength of associationfor each pair in the plurality of pairs. For example, control circuitry704 may determine that “The Patriot” in node 914 and “Video Games” innode 910 have a strong association, and “Patriot Games” in node 920 and“Sports” in node 906 have a weak association. In some embodiments, thestrength of association is a value representative of a distancedetermined by values associated with the edges between nodes. While both“The Patriot” in node 914 and “Video Games” in node 910 and “PatriotGames” in node 920 and “Sports” in node 906 are only a node apart, ifthe edges between each node add up to a smaller sum, the total distanceis smaller. In some embodiments, the strength of association is acategory which is determined by a threshold distance such as a “Strong”association if the nodes are below the threshold and a “Weak”association if the nodes are above the threshold. Process proceeds tostep 1012.

At step 1012, control circuitry 704 filters the plurality of pairs bythe strength of association for each pair. In some embodiments, controlcircuitry 704 filters the plurality of pairs by identifying a first pairof the plurality of pairs, determining whether the first pair has astrength of association which is below a required threshold, excludingthe first pair from the filtered plurality of pairs in response todetermining that the strength of association is below the requiredthreshold, and including the first pair in the filtered plurality ofpairs in response to determining that the strength of association is notbelow the required threshold. For example, control circuitry 704 mayremove the pair of “Patriot Games” in node 920 and “Sports” in node 906based on the weak association between the candidate components, whichindicates that the distance between the candidate components is notwithin the threshold distance. Process proceeds to step 1014.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 determines the requiredthreshold based on the strength of association for each of the pluralityof pairs, adjust the required threshold based on the filtered pluralityof pairs, and filter the plurality of pairs based on the adjustedrequired threshold. For example, control circuitry 704 may set a firstthreshold based on an average distance between candidate components, andafter filtering the plurality of pairs, determine that the thresholdneeds to be lower to further narrow down the options, and adjust thethreshold accordingly.

At step 1014, control circuitry 704 determines a plurality of possiblemeanings associated with the query based on the filtered plurality ofpairs. In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 determines a possiblemeaning by identifying a relevant media asset based on the pair ofcandidate components. For example, control circuitry 704 may determinethat both of the pairs “The Patriot” in node 914 and “Video Games” innode 910, and “The Patriot” in node 914 and “The Patriot: The Game” innode 912 are referring to the media asset “The Patriot: The Game,” as avideo game associated with the movie, “The Patriot.” Process proceeds tostep 1016.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 isolates a command term fromthe query received from the user and determines the plurality ofpossible meanings associated with the query based on the filteredplurality of pairs and the command term. For example, control circuitry704 may isolate the term “When is” as a command term and determine thatall possible meanings must have an associated action of displayingprogram information relating to time. In some embodiments, controlcircuitry 704 determines the plurality of possible meanings bydetermining a plurality of possible meanings associated with the commandterm, where each of the possible meanings is associated with expectedterms, comparing the expected terms associated with each possiblemeaning associated with the command term to the filtered plurality ofpairs, filtering out a subset of the plurality of pairs based on thecomparison, and determining the plurality of possible meaningsassociated with the query based on the subset of the plurality of pairsand the expected terms. For example, control circuitry 704 may expectany query containing the command term “When is” to also identify abroadcast media asset if the query also contains the word “on,” andsearch the media assets determined to be related to the plurality ofpairs so that only the broadcast media assets are used in the pluralityof possible meanings.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 isolates a third term fromthe query received from the user and determines the plurality ofpossible meanings associated with the query based on the filteredplurality of pairs and the third term. For example, control circuitry704 may isolate the term “TNT” from the query and limit the possiblemeanings to relate to media assets associated with the televisionchannel TNT. In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 determines theplurality of possible meanings by identifying, in the knowledge graph900, a third candidate component associated with the third term,identifying expected terms associated with the third candidatecomponent, comparing the expected terms associated with the thirdcandidate component to each pair in the filtered plurality of pairs,filtering out a subset of the plurality of pairs based on thecomparison, and determining the plurality of possible meaningsassociated with the query based on the subset of the plurality of pairsand the expected terms. For example, control circuitry 704 may isolatethe term “TNT” from the query, determine that there is an expectationthat a term from the query is a broadcast media asset associated withthe television channel TNT and limit the plurality of pairs to onlythose with candidate components with metadata identifying that it isbroadcast on TNT.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 receives feedback on theaccuracy for the plurality of possible meanings associated with thequery and adjusts the required threshold based on the received feedback.For example, control circuitry 704 may receive feedback from the userthat none of the results are relevant to the users query, and controlcircuitry 704 may raise the threshold so that fewer items are likely tobe filtered out.

At step 1016, control circuitry 704 selects a meaning from the pluralityof possible meanings associated with the query. For example, controlcircuitry 704 may identify the media assets “Patriot Games” which isplaying on TNT at 8 pm, “Patriots vs. Jets” which is playing on FOX at10 pm, and “The Patriot: The Game” which is in the Game Store, from thelisted pairs, and determine to display program information about themovie “Patriot Games” playing on TNT at 8 pm because is the only one ofthe media assets playing on TNT.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 selects the meaning for thequery by ranking the plurality of possible meanings according to a userpreference and automatically determining the meaning for the query basedon the ranking. For example, if the user preferences show that the userloves Actions Movies, and hates Sports and Video Games, controlcircuitry 704 may rank “Patriot Games” higher than “Patriots vs. Jets”and “The Patriot: The Game,” and select “Patriot Games” as the meaning.In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 selects the meaning for thequery by generating for display the plurality of possible meaningsassociated with query, and receiving a user selection of the meaning forthe query. For example, control circuitry 704 may provide the user withthe options of “Patriot Games,” “Patriots vs. Jets,” and “The Patriot:The Game” and allow the user to select one of the three options.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 10 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, thedescriptions described in relation to the algorithm of FIG. 10 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, conditional statements and logicalevaluations may be performed in any order or in parallel orsimultaneously to reduce lag or increase the speed of the system ormethod. As a further example, in some embodiments several instances of avariable may be evaluated in parallel, using multiple logical processorthreads, or the algorithm may be enhanced by incorporating branchprediction. Furthermore, it should be noted that the process of FIG. 10may be implemented on a combination of appropriately configured softwareand hardware, and that any of the devices or equipment discussed inrelation to FIGS. 7-8 could be used to implement one or more portions ofthe process.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for identifying a meaningof an ambiguous term, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. FIG. 11 presents a process for control circuitry (e.g.,control circuitry 704) to identify a meaning of an ambiguous term inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. In some embodiments,this algorithm may be encoded on to non-transitory storage medium (e.g.,storage device 708) as a set of instructions to be decoded and executedby processing circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry 706). Processingcircuitry may, in turn, provide instructions to other sub-circuitscontained within control circuitry 704, such as the tuning, videogenerating, encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaling,analog/digital conversion circuitry, and the like.

At step 1102, control circuitry 704 retrieves the next first candidatecomponent associated with the first term. For example, control circuitry704 may have identified candidate components in nodes 902, 912, 914, and920 as associated with the term “Patriot.” Control circuitry 704retrieves “Patriots” in node 902 as the first candidate component.Process 1100 proceeds to step 1104.

At step 1104, control circuitry 704 retrieves the next second candidatecomponent associated with the second term. For example, controlcircuitry 704 may have identified candidate components in nodes 904,906, 908, 910, 912, and 920 as associated with the term “Game.” Controlcircuitry 704 retrieves “Football” in node 904 as the second candidatecomponent. Process 1100 proceeds to step 1106.

At step 1106, control circuitry 704 measures the distance between thefirst candidate component and the second candidate component. Forexample, “Patriots” and “Football” are 1 node apart on the knowledgegraph 900. The distance may be measured in terms of nodes, or in termsof values associated with each edge between nodes. Process 1100 proceedsto step 1108.

At step 1108, control circuitry 704 determines whether the distance isgreater than the threshold. For example, if the threshold is 3, thedistance of 1 node is not greater than the threshold. If controlcircuitry 704 determines that the distance is greater than thethreshold, process 1100 proceeds to 1112. Otherwise, process 1100proceeds to 1110.

At step 1110, control circuitry 704 saves the first candidate componentand second candidate component as a pair. For example, control circuitry704 saves into storage the pair of candidate components “Patriots” innode 902 and “Football” in node 904. Process 1100 proceeds to step 1112.

At step 1112, control circuitry 704 determines whether there is anothercandidate component associated with the second term. For example, ifcontrol circuitry 704 detects additional second candidate componentsthat have not yet been retrieved, control circuitry will determine thatthere is another second candidate component associated with the secondterm “Game.” If control circuitry 704 determines that there is anothercandidate component, process 1100 proceeds to 1104. Otherwise, process1100 proceeds to 1114.

At step 1114, control circuitry 704 determines whether there is anothercandidate component associated with the first term. For example, ifcontrol circuitry 704 detects additional first candidate components thathave not yet been retrieved, control circuitry will determine that thereis another first candidate component associated with the first term“Patriot.” If control circuitry 704 determines that there is anothercandidate component, process 1100 proceeds to 1102. Otherwise, process1100 proceeds to 1116.

At step 1116, control circuitry 704 determines whether there is acommand term. For example, control circuitry 704 may identify the term“When is” in the query and identify it as a command term based on thepredetermined list of command terms. If a command term is present in thequery, process 1100 proceeds to step 1124. Otherwise, process 1100process to step 1118.

At step 1118, control circuitry 704 determines whether there is a thirdterm. For example, control circuitry 704 may identify the term “TNT” asa third term. If a third term is present in the query, process 1100proceeds to step 1120. Otherwise, process 1100 proceeds to step 1126.

At step 1120, control circuitry 704 identifies a third candidatecomponent associated with the third term. For example, control circuitry704 accesses the knowledge graph 900, and identifies that candidatecomponent “TNT” in node 918 associated with the term “TNT.” Process 1100proceeds to step 1122.

At step 1122, control circuitry 704 determines expected terms associatedwith the third candidate component. For example, control circuitry 704determines that TNT in node 918 refers to a television channel, and itis expected to be associated with a broadcast media or actor. Process1100 proceeds to step 1126.

At step 1124, control circuitry 704 determines expected terms based onthe command term by accessing a command term database. For example,control circuitry 1124 determines, based on rules saved in a database,that the command term “When is” is associated with information regardingtime and the combination of “When is” and “on” indicates a broadcastmedia asset or actor. Process 1100 proceeds to step 1126.

At step 1126, control circuitry 704 compares expected terms and thesaved pair of candidate components to determine possible meanings. Forexample, control circuitry 704 considers each of the saved pairs ofcandidate components and filters out any pairs which do not refer to abroadcast media asset or actor based on the third term “TNT.” If nocommand term or third term was identified, control circuitry 704considers the expected terms associated with the candidate componentsthemselves. For example, the pair of candidate components “Patriots” and“Football” may share the expected terms “won” and “score” and so controlcircuitry 704 may determine the user likely meant to generate thedisplay of a score associated with the team the Patriots. Controlcircuitry 704 will add this possible meaning to the plurality ofpossible meanings.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 11 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, thedescriptions described in relation to the algorithm of FIG. 11 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, conditional statements and logicalevaluations may be performed in any order or in parallel orsimultaneously to reduce lag or increase the speed of the system ormethod. As a further example, in some embodiments several instances of avariable may be evaluated in parallel, using multiple logical processorthreads, or the algorithm may be enhanced by incorporating branchprediction. Furthermore, it should be noted that the process of FIG. 11may be implemented on a combination of appropriately configured softwareand hardware, and that any of the devices or equipment discussed inrelation to FIGS. 7-8 could be used to implement one or more portions ofthe process.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted that the systems and/or methods described above may be appliedto, or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for identifying a meaning of an ambiguous term in a natural language query, the method comprising: receiving, via a user interface, a query from a user; isolating a first term and a second term from the query received from the user; accessing, at a storage device, a knowledge graph; identifying, in the knowledge graph, a first plurality of candidate components associated with the first term, wherein the first term having more than one candidate component indicates the first term has an ambiguous meaning; identifying, in the knowledge graph, a second plurality of identified candidate components associated with the second term, wherein the second term having more than one candidate component indicates the second term has an ambiguous meaning; matching each candidate component of the first plurality of candidate components to each candidate component of the second plurality of candidate components to form a plurality of pairs; determining a strength of association for each pair in the plurality of pairs based on a distance on the knowledge graph between two nodes of the respective pair; filtering the plurality of pairs by the strength of association for each pair; determining a plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the filtered plurality of pairs; and selecting a meaning from the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based at least in part on a ranking of the plurality of possible meanings.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: isolating a command term from the query received from the user; determining the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the filtered plurality of pairs and the command term.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining the plurality of possible meanings further comprises: determining a plurality of possible meanings associated with the command term, wherein each of the possible meanings is associated with expected terms; comparing the expected terms associated with each possible meaning associated with the command term to the filtered plurality of pairs; filtering out a subset of the plurality of pairs based on the comparison; and determining the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the subset of the plurality of pairs and the expected terms.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein filtering the plurality of pairs further comprises: identifying a first pair of the plurality of pairs; determining whether the first pair has a strength of association which is below a required threshold; in response to determining that the strength of association is below the required threshold, excluding the first pair from the filtered plurality of pairs; and in response to determining that the strength of association is not below the required threshold, including the first pair in the filtered the plurality of pairs.
 5. The method of claim 4, further comprising: determining the required threshold based on the strength of association for each of the plurality of pairs; adjusting the required threshold based on the filtered plurality of pairs; and filtering the plurality of pairs based on the adjusted required threshold.
 6. The method of claim 4, further comprising: receiving feedback on the accuracy for the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query; and adjusting the required threshold based on the received feedback.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: isolating a third term from the query received from the user; determining the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the filtered plurality of pairs and the third term.
 8. The method of claim 7, further comprising: identifying, in the knowledge graph, a third candidate component associated with the third term; identifying expected terms associated with the third candidate component; comparing the expected terms associated with the third candidate component to each pair in the filtered plurality of pairs; filtering out a subset of the plurality of pairs based on the comparison; and determining the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the subset of the plurality of pairs and the expected terms.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the meaning for the query further comprises: generating for display the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query; and receiving a user selection of the meaning for the query.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the meaning for the query further comprises: ranking the plurality of possible meanings according to a user preference; and automatically determining the meaning for the query based on the ranking.
 11. A system for identifying a meaning of an ambiguous term in a natural language query, the system comprising: a storage device; a user interface; and processing circuitry configured to: receive, via the user interface, a query from a user; isolate a first term and a second term from the query received from the user; access, at a storage device, a knowledge graph; identify, in the knowledge graph, a first plurality of candidate components associated with the first term, wherein the first term having more than one candidate component indicates the first term has an ambiguous meaning; identify, in the knowledge graph, a second plurality of identified candidate components associated with the second term, wherein the second term having more than one candidate component indicates the second term has an ambiguous meaning; match each candidate component of the first plurality of candidate components to each candidate component of the second plurality of candidate components to form a plurality of pairs; determine a strength of association for each pair in the plurality of pairs based on a distance on the knowledge graph between two nodes of the respective pair; filter the plurality of pairs by the strength of association for each pair; determine a plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the filtered plurality of pairs; and select a meaning from the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based at least in part on a ranking of the plurality of possible meanings.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: isolate a command term from the query received from the user; determine the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the filtered plurality of pairs and the command term.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein the processing circuitry configured to determine the plurality of possible meanings is further configured to: determine a plurality of possible meanings associated with the command term, wherein each of the possible meanings is associated with expected terms; compare the expected terms associated with each possible meaning associated with the command term to the filtered plurality of pairs; filter out a subset of the plurality of pairs based on the comparison; and determine the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the subset of the plurality of pairs and the expected terms.
 14. The system of claim 11, wherein the processing circuitry configured to filter the plurality of pairs is further configured to: identify a first pair of the plurality of pairs; determine whether the first pair has a strength of association which is below a required threshold; in response to determining that the strength of association is below the required threshold, exclude the first pair from the filtered plurality of pairs; and in response to determining that the strength of association is not below the required threshold, include the first pair in the filtered the plurality of pairs.
 15. The system of claim 14, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: determine the required threshold based on the strength of association for each of the plurality of pairs; adjust the required threshold based on the filtered plurality of pairs; and filter the plurality of pairs based on the adjusted required threshold.
 16. The system of claim 14, further comprising: receive feedback on the accuracy for the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query; and adjust the required threshold based on the received feedback.
 17. The system of claim 11, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: isolate a third term from the query received from the user; determine the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the filtered plurality of pairs and the third term.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: identify, in the knowledge graph, a third candidate component associated with the third term; identify expected terms associated with the third candidate component; compare the expected terms associated with the third candidate component to each pair in the filtered plurality of pairs; filter out a subset of the plurality of pairs based on the comparison; and determine the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query based on the subset of the plurality of pairs and the expected terms.
 19. The system of claim 11 wherein the processing circuitry configured to select the meaning for the query is further configured to: generate for display the plurality of possible meanings associated with the query; and receive a user selection of the meaning for the query.
 20. The system of claim 11 wherein the processing circuitry configured to select the meaning for the query is further configured to: rank the plurality of possible meanings according to a user preference; and automatically determine the meaning for the query based on the ranking. 